Ephraim Hardcastle
MUCH-in-demand Mary Berry has suffered financially in the pandemic. Her latest company results show a £200,000 reduction in value to £1.2million last year. Blaming Covid, Mary’s accountants say: ‘Although the directors consider that the outbreak has caused some disruption to the company’s business to date, they consider that a prolonged outbreak is likely to cause further disruption.’ On a brighter note Mary, 85, and husband Paul Hunnings have been vaccinated. ‘I think everyone should take the vaccine, not query it, and think of others,’ she says.
DOES Prince Charles have a subtle hand on the steering wheel of wife Camilla’s new book club The Reading Room? One of her first recommendations, The Architect’s Apprentice, contains intricate details of his passion for building design and practice. Charles received several copies of Elif Shafak’s tome from chums who knew it would appeal to him. Now it is one of four books given the thumbs up by the missus.
SIR Paul McCartney described Phil Spector’s production of the 1970 Beatles album Let It Be as ‘terrible’. Spector pointed out that Macca had no problem picking up awards for it and using his arrangements on tour for 25 years, adding: ‘If Paul wants to get into a p***ing contest about it, he’s got me mixed up with someone who gives a s***.’ There won’t be any competition now. Murderer Spector has joined the Covid fallen.
REFLECTING on two decades of BBC news presenting Fiona Bruce, pictured, discloses the ‘open hostility’ between the evening news team and those working on the lunchtime bulletin. ‘I was on the six o’clock desk and the one o’clock desk was a row behind us,’ she tells a podcast. ‘And the six o’clock team are there slagging off the pieces on the one o’clock news. It was horrible.’
FIONA, who says the newsroom atmosphere has radically altered for the better, reveals she was once lost for words live on air. ‘The only time I ever corpsed on the news was handing over to Evan Davis, [who] was resplendent in a hairnet. I nearly fell off the chair laughing. Other than that I have held it together.’
JUDE Law’s son Raff, 24, feverishly promoting his role as Oliver Twist in an updated version of the Dickens classic, is described as a rooftop-dwelling art-loving loner adept at parkour (urban activity involving climbing and vaulting). He stars alongside Sophie Simnett as a renamed Nancy called Red. Lena Headey, from Game of Thrones, is a female Bill Sikes and a ludicrously moustached Sir Michael Caine plays Fagin. On singer Rita Ora’s female Artful Dodger, Raff pronounces: ‘She smashed it.’ Doesn’t Raff’s big screen debut sound like a turkey of the year contender?
RONAN Keating clears his throat to demand an urgent meeting with the PM. ‘I think it’s time we had a chat,’ he tweets. ‘I can’t come to yours nor can you come to mine. But can we meet in a park socially distant and discuss how this government is affecting UK musicians and the arts?’ Give the Boyzone warbler a red box!